Willie Morris > Quotes

“They had buried him under our elm tree, they said -- yet this was not totally true. For he really lay buried in my heart.”
― Willie Morris, My Dog Skip

“I have always had a love for American geography, and especially for the landscapes of the South. One of my pleasures has been to drive across it, with no one in the world knowing where I am, languidly absorbing the thoughts and memories of old moments, of people vanished now from my life.”
― Willie Morris, The Courting of Marcus Dupree

“As with many Southern Writers, I believe that the special quality of the land itself indelibly shapes the people who dwell upon it.”
― Willie Morris, The Courting of Marcus Dupree

“And it was to this city, whenever I went home, that I always knew I must return, for it was mistress of one's wildest hopes, protector of one's deepest privacies. It was half insane with its noise, violence, and decay, but it gave one the tender security of fulfillment. On winter afternoons, from my office, there were sunsets across Manhattan when the smog itself shimmered and glowed… Despite its difficulties, which become more obvious all the time, one was constantly put to the test by this city, which finally came down to its people; no other place in America had quite such people and they would not allow you to go stale; in the end they were its triumph and its reward.”
― Willie Morris

“I can sometimes hear her music now, after thirty years -- and remember the leaves falling on some smoky autumn afternoon, the air crisp and the sounds of dogs barking, and train whistles far away.”
― Willie Morris, North Toward Home: A Memoir

“The rugged, primitive hills sometimes soar to dizzying heights, then stretch downward into low-lying valleys and bottomlands where the cotton, soybeans, and corn have always prospered, and the splendid pines and hardwoods in both the hills and the bottoms lend a fine beauty to the hard earth.”
― Willie Morris, The Courting of Marcus Dupree